Red Hill

Chapter Nineteen

Miranda

I’D IMAGINED SO MANY TIMES in the last week what it would feel like to finally lie down in my bed, to feel the safety of the walls that my dad’s house provided, but even under a familiar comforter, my head resting on a pillow I’d picked out myself, I didn’t feel at home. I felt sick, displaced, and afraid.

Bryce was lying behind me, his body outlining mine. My body was nearly in a ball, but Bryce made sure to surround me with his warmth and love, as if it would keep reality away.

“I can’t remember the last thing I said to him, but I don’t think it was anything nice,” I whispered.

“He was excited that you were coming. If you weren’t nice to him, he obviously didn’t notice.”

“I wanted to hug him.” I sniffed, turning my head so the sleeve of my zipup hoodie could catch more tears. “Getting here and being safe meant him being here to protect us. I don’t know where my mom is, and my dad is dead. Leah’s dead. I have no one.”

Bryce propped his head up with his hand. “You have Ashley, and you have me.”

Those words should have offered more comfort than they did. I lay there until the rain began to patter on the roof and Bryce’s breathing turned deep, and rhythmic. The lightning cast quick flashes and shadows on the wall, including my own as I quietly snuck to the door and into the living room.

Scarlet was asleep on the couch, a rifle nestled in her arms like a child. She’d always been kind to us, and her little girls were so sweet. Once when Dad made Ashley and I help him burn brush, Jenna and Halle helped, too, entertaining us so much that by the time we were finished, it barely seemed like we’d started.

I crept over to the front door and twisted the knob.

“I wouldn’t,” Scarlet whispered in the dark.

I jumped, and then when my nerves stopped trying to jump out of my skin, I sat on the rocking chair adjacent to the couch Scarlet was resting on.

“That was smart. The cans, I mean. I would have never thought of it.”

She didn’t raise her head, and if she hadn’t spoken to me moments before, I would have thought she was still asleep. Lightning lit up the room for a second, and I caught sight of a tear dripping from her nose.

“They’re probably worried about you, too,” I said. Trying to comfort someone else made me feel better. It kept my mind off the fact that I was probably an orphan.

“I worry about them being outside in this weather,” Scarlet said, sitting up. “I worry that Andrew was hurt or killed and they’re alone.”

“Worrying won’t help them.”

“I know,” she said quietly. “You shouldn’t go outside. I’ve watched out the window at night. Sometimes I catch glimpses of shufflers in the fields. They’re not that fast, and not that smart. Getting caught off guard is how they get you. That, or getting caught in a big group of them like on the highway.”

“By Shallot?”

Scarlet nodded.

“We’ve been staying there. In Shallot. They were all on the highway, but now they’re in town.”

“You sure about that?”

“Someone ran their car into the gas station. Blew up. Drew them all back in.”

Scarlet’s eyebrows pulled in, and she closed her eyes. “Was it a white Tahoe?”

“Huh?”

“The car that hit the station. Was it a white Tahoe?”

“No. Is that what your ex drives?”

Scarlet opened her eyes and sighed.

“So they’re with him.”

After a short pause, Scarlet rested her elbows on her knees. “I hope so. Andrew picked them up from school. By the time I got off work and everything went to shit, they were in Anderson.”

I waited, watching her eyes search the darkness for something.

“I tried to get to them,” she said. Her breath caught sharply. “I snuck into town. They weren’t home. The town was overrun. I didn’t know what to do.” Her voice broke, and she covered her mouth with a trembling hand. “So I left them a message to come here. I’m not sure it was the right decision . . . to leave. Did I abandon them?”

“I saw you,” I said. Scarlet’s head jerked up to meet my eyes. “In that Jeep. I saw you heading toward Fairview on the highway. You got past them?”

“Past who?” Scarlet asked.

“The kids with the guns. On the bridge.”

“Yeah,” she said quietly, looking down. “I got past them.”

“You’re lucky,” I said. “We were stuck under the overpass. They opened fire on everyone.”

Scarlet offered a small, tired smile. “I guess you were lucky, too.”

“Who shot at you?” A deep voice said. I turned to see Joey standing in the dark kitchen.

“Jesus, you scared the shit out of me,” Scarlet said, blowing out a quick breath.

“Men—kids, actually—at the Anderson bridge had guns, shooting at anyone trying to get in,” I said, watching Joey sit on the carpet next to me.

“Good thing we ran out of gas. We were headed to Anderson. Dana’s dad lived there.”

“Small world,” Scarlet said, her smile fading.

Joey sighed. “Even smaller now.”

We sat in silence for a while, listening to the thunder rumble and the lightning crack across the sky. The sky opened up and rain poured down, drenching the farmhouse until it moved slowly toward Shallot and then Fairview. I thought of the dead ones, if they even noticed the storm, and of the small children in Shallot with the milky eyes that just a few days ago might have been terrified of thunder and lightning. They were now ambling outside, impervious to the rain, the wind, and the monsters walking alongside them.

“Dana liked storms,” Joey said. “She would have wanted to go outside and dance in the rain.”

“Dana is your wife?” Scarlet said.

“She was going to be.”

“You lost her,” Scarlet said, more a statement than a question.

“A couple of times.”

Scarlet’s eyebrows pulled together. I thought about explaining, but it wasn’t my story to tell.

“You saw my father?” I asked.

“I saw him at work,” she said. “He was really excited about you girls coming here for the weekend. It was all he talked about.”

Tears burned my eyes again.

Scarlet continued, “We were busy, so I didn’t get to talk to him much. Mostly just that morning . . .” Scarlet seemed to get lost in a thought, and then she looked up. “Joey?”

“Yeah?”

“You said your girlfriend’s name was Dana?” Joey nodded and Scarlet shook her head. “Was she at the hospital Friday?”

Joey nodded.

“I met her!” Scarlet said. She smiled and touched her chest. “I did her exam! She met Miranda’s dad!”

Scarlet’s smile seemed so out of place for the discussion, but I was waiting for Joey’s reaction. At first, he just stared back at her blank-faced, and then a small smile turned up the corners of his mouth. “She was beautiful.”

Scarlet nodded emphatically. “Oh my God, she was. Crazy about you, too. You being there was so comforting to her.”

Joey nodded. Even in the dim light, I could see his eyes fill with tears.

Scarlet yawned. “Wow. Crazy how we all ended up here,” she said. She lay on the couch, and used her bent arm as a pillow.

Joey and I stood; that was our cue. Joey walked a few steps toward the laundry room, and then stopped and turned. “I don’t sleep much. You’re welcome to hang out downstairs with me, if you want.”

I knew I shouldn’t. I looked to Scarlet for judgment or guidance, but her eyes were already closed. “Okay,” I said, following him downstairs. I’d been up and down that stairway so many times since my father had bought that ranch, but this time was different. My blood rose to the surface of my cheeks, and burned hotter with every step. When we walked into the vast space of the finished basement, Joey raised his arms.

“Welcome to my place.”

I smiled. “Technically, it’s my place.”

Joey sat on the floor, and I sat on the loveseat. I glanced to each side of me, amused that Scarlet had to guess if he would fit. His legs from thighs down would have hung off the end.

We spent hours talking about how long my father had owned the ranch, how Ashley and I spent our summers there, and the stupid predicaments we would get into, like the time she lost her shoe in the mud because we snuck out in the middle of the night to meet Bryce and his friends so they could drive us to the Diversion Dam for Matt Painter’s kegger.

It felt good to laugh and remember things that didn’t mean anything at the time. Any good memories were everything now.

Joey’s eyes began to redden and droop, and I was finally feeling the effects of exhaustion myself, so I stood and headed for the stairs. Something stopped me, and I turned.

“Joey?”

“Yeah?”

“Why did it make you so happy to know that Scarlet did Dana’s exam? Wasn’t she really sick then?”

Joey nodded. “Yeah, but . . . I don’t know. Talking to someone else who knew Dana when she was alive makes her real, you know? It’s easy to forget that our lives before weren’t a dream. This isn’t the reality, how we’re meant to live, or who we are. The people we were seven days ago . . . that is who we are, and Scarlet remembering Dana when she was alive makes that true.”

I shook my head. I still didn’t understand.

Joey shrugged. “It feels good to know she lives in someone else’s memory, too.”

I offered a small smile, and shoved my hands in the pockets of my hoodie. “Goodnight.”

Nathan

MY EYES PEELED OPEN, AND it took a moment for me to recall where I was and why. Simultaneously, I remembered that Zoe was supposed to be asleep next to me, and realized that her side of the bed was empty. In a panic, I scrambled over the bed and ran through the French doors to the living room. Zoe was sitting at the head of the dining room table, chomping away on Frosted Mini-Wheats and chatting Scarlet’s ear off.

Scarlet was sitting in the chair next to Zoe, her chin resting in her hand, listening intently to every word my daughter uttered. Zoe and Scarlet mirrored each other’s happiness in that moment, and I got a little choked up at the sight of them. Zoe’s sweet smile had returned, and Scarlet’s fiery red hair glowed in the morning sun that poured through cracks in the wooden slats on the window. I wasn’t sure I’d seen anything more beautiful.

Once Scarlet caught a glimpse of me, she pushed away from the table and went outside. Zoe took another bite, and I winked at her before joining Scarlet on the porch. She was staring down the dirt road, longing for her daughters, I imagined.

“My daughter Halle isn’t much older than Zoe,” she said, covering her mouth with a few of her fingers. Her pink nail polish was nearly completely chipped away, but her fingers were still elegant.

“How old is the other one? You have two, right?”

Scarlet cast a curious glance in my direction.

“The picture on the wall.”

“Just the two,” she said with a guarded smile. “Jenna is thirteen.” I laughed once, and Scarlet nodded. “Boy, is she ever.”

“I can’t imagine.”

“You will,” she said. Her smile faded. “They were supposed to meet me here if something happened. They were with their father when . . . I couldn’t get to them.”

“They know their way?”

She nodded. “Halle made up a song. She makes up a song for everything. It used to drive me crazy. I try to remember some of them, but I can’t,” she whispered the last bit. “Having all of Halle’s artwork from school all over my Suburban was maddening. I remember getting on her case for it so many times. I wish to God I had just one piece of that now. That picture is all I have of them.”

Her blue eyes glistened, and I fought the urge to wrap my arms around her. Before that thought was complete, her soft, red hair was under my chin, and her hands were interlocked at the small of my back. It took me a moment to realize what was happening, but then I rested my cheek against her hair and squeezed her tight. She wept quietly in my arms, and I waited patiently until she stopped shaking.

She let go first, and wiped her eyes. “I’m sorry. That was probably a weird thing to do.”

“Nothing is weird anymore,” I said with a half-smile.

She laughed, for maybe the first time since this all started. It sounded like music and sunshine. “That’s true.” Her eyes wandered back to the crest of the hill, and we waited in silence for a while until Zoe called for me. I left her alone to tend to my daughter. After an hour, Zoe tugged on my slacks.

“Is she going to stay out there all day?”

“I don’t know,” I said. Scarlet hadn’t moved. She watched the road like she was expecting her children to come over the hill at any moment.

Minutes later, Scarlet tore herself away and came back in, immediately checking the nails in the slats, and then finding things to organize or clean.

Miranda and Bryce emerged from their bedroom. Miranda’s eyes were swollen. It looked like she’d been crying again. Bryce was holding her hand, and squeezed it once before letting go to make them some breakfast.

“We should be careful what we consume,” Joey said. “We’ll probably have to go back to Shallot eventually for supplies.”

“Not for a while,” Bryce said, opening the cabinet. It was stocked full. “There is a pantry, too. A big one.”

“What about the water situation?” Joey asked.

“Well,” Ashley said, following Cooper out of her room. They were more affectionate toward one another than Bryce and Miranda. They reached out to touch each other recurrently, like a dolphin rising to the surface for air.

“Well what?” Joey said.

Ashley smiled. “Water well.”

“Is it electric?” Joey asked.

“The pump is,” Scarlet said. “Why?”

“How much longer will we have electricity, and what will we do for water when we don’t?” Joey said matter-of-factly.

Everyone traded glances. I felt the same way. It hadn’t occurred to me that it was only a matter of time before we were without power.

Ashley looked to Joey. “How much longer do you think we have?”

“It depends on if the operators and utilities had enough warning to take measures to keep things running for a while,” I said. “I’m pretty sure this area is run by a hydroelectric power station, otherwise we would have been off by now.”

“How do you know all of that?” Miranda asked.

“It’s what I do,” I said. “Or what I used to do. If operators had time to isolate key portions of the grid to reduce connections, and then terminate power delivery altogether to areas prone to potential drains, a hydro plant could easily function for weeks or months. In theory, they have an unlimited fuel supply, assuming normal rainfall. We’d basically be waiting for an essential component to fail or wear out.”

“So we should prepare,” Joey said. “We have food, we have weapons, but they won’t mean anything if we don’t have water.”

“Should we find containers and start filling them?” Cooper asked.

Joey nodded. “That will work for a while, but we’ll eventually need something more long-term. We need some kind of a water filtration system.”

Ashley sat at the table. “How much longer is this going to go on? It’s not permanent . . . is it? They’ll fix it.”

“Who’s they?” Joey asked.

“The government,” Cooper said.

Joey shook his head. “We shouldn’t assume this is temporary. We should take measures now to . . .”

“I’d just like to know who the fuck died and left you running the show,” Bryce said, cutting Joey off.

“Bryce . . . ,” Miranda said.

“Okay,” I said, holding up my hands. “We’re all tired and stressed. I’m sure with the storm last night not many of us got much rest. Bryce, you’ve got a point. We need to work together and come up with a plan. Joey, you seem like you know what you’re talking about. You’ve had training?”

“He just got back from Afghanistan,” Miranda said. Her input only agitated Bryce more.

“Okay, then,” I said, trying to avoid a scene. “Joey, why don’t you look around and see what you can come up with? We’ll need to fashion some sort of water-holding cistern, and we’ll need to go into town for a hand-pumped water filter, replacement filters, and some purification tablets if we can find them.”

“That’s asking a lot,” Miranda said. “You would find all of that at a large camping outlet. The closest one I can think of is over two hours away.”

“I used to watch those preparation shows on TV,” Scarlet said. “They showed someone pouring water through sand once, and then putting cloth at the bottom. Sand is a really good filtration system. There is charcoal out back. We just need a large jug or barrel, gravel, sand, and charcoal and put some cloth at the mouth. Turn it upside down and voila! Water filter . . . that is, in theory.”

“That’s a pretty good theory,” I said with a small smile. She smiled back.

“It’s still a theory,” Bryce grumbled.

Joey glanced over at Bryce, his jaws working, and then nodded, leaving out the side door.

Miranda glared at Bryce, and then continued making her cereal.

Bryce held out his hands. “What?”

I noticed Scarlet had quietly excused herself to the porch, standing in the same place she had that morning, staring at the road. She wore a man’s T-shirt that swallowed her and a pair of navy scrub pants.

“Now I know why the bedroom is a mess,” I teased. “You raided the doctor’s wardrobe.”

Scarlet looked down at her haphazard appearance and absently pulled a lock of stray hair behind her ear and then smoothed the rest. “Just the one T-shirt,” she said. “I actually didn’t ransack his room. It was like that. I was going to clean it—I actually needed to after I’d cleaned everything else and ran out of things to do—but I decided it was his room, and for some reason I had to leave it the way it was. Maybe for the girls.”

“His girls?”

She nodded to confirm, but soon her eyebrows pulled together and I realized too late my casual question for clarification reminded her of who she was waiting for.

“I can’t imagine waiting for Zoe, wondering if she was okay, or if she was coming at all.”

Scarlet laughed once. “You’re not helping.”

“But you have to believe that they’re coming.”

She closed her eyes and a tear slipped from beneath one of her eyelids. “I do.” She looked at me. “Trust me, I believe it. Andrew was a terrible husband, and to be honest, he wasn’t that great of a father, but what he lacked in compassion and patience, he more than made up for in efficiency and sense. He’s smart. Quick witted, you know? He could think on his feet. If anyone can get my girls here, to me, it’s him.”

“I’m sure you’re right.”

She looked down her feet for a moment, fighting a hopeful smile, and then stared back at the road. We stood together in silence, watching the road together, until Zoe called for me. She was playing with small plastic horses, and Cooper was standing over her with a proud smile.

“They were Ashley’s.”

I nodded. “That was very kind of you.”

“She reminds me a lot of my little sister.” Cooper looked up at me. “Ashley was majoring in early childhood education. She’s good at it. I bet she could work with Zoe a little every day.”

Ashley walked by, on her way somewhere, and reached out for Cooper. Without looking back, he reached his hand behind him, and their fingertips grazed as she walked by. I wasn’t even sure how he knew she was coming.

“I can,” she said as she walked through the dining room to the back hallway. Her bedroom was back there somewhere, so I assumed that’s where she was headed.

“That will be so good for her. You have no idea. I can’t thank you enough.” I said the words to Cooper, even though it was for Ashley. Speaking to one was like speaking to both.

It was odd watching them interact and move about, orbiting each other, like an old couple who’d been married fifty years or more. If reincarnation was possible, these kids had to have found their way to each other again, many times over.

After an hour, Scarlet returned inside. She smiled at Zoe. “Do you have horses?” she asked.

Zoe held up a tiny horse in each hand. “Just these.”

Scarlet nodded her head, her expression absent of condescension. “Better than that bull out there, that’s for sure.”

“Butch?” Cooper said. “He’s not a bad guy. He’s just sick of being cooped up in that pen. You’ve been feeding him, haven’t you?”

“He has hay,” Scarlet said, “and water. I’m worried he’s going to attract shufflers, though.”

“Attract what?” Cooper said, chuckling.

Scarlet glanced at me, and then back at Cooper, clearly taken off guard by the question. “Shufflers. I can’t call them zombies,” she said, rolling her eyes at the word. “Zombies are from Hollywood. Zombies aren’t real. Those things need a name that’s real.”

“Yeah, but shufflers?” Cooper said, making a face.

“They shuffle!” Scarlet said, mildly defensive.

The conversation had drawn the attention of the rest of the group, and everyone else was congregating in the living room, too.

“I’ve been calling them sick, or infected,” I said.

“Those things,” Ashley said. Everyone craned their neck in her direction. She shrugged. “That’s what I call them: those things.”

Miranda crossed her arms. “I can’t call them zombies, either. I call them dead ones.”

“Biters,” Joey said.

“I like biters,” Miranda said, nodding.

“Well, I like shufflers. They shuffle,” Scarlet said.

Joey laughed once without humor. “They also bite.”

Scarlet frowned, but everyone seemed to be amused with the conversation.

“I think we should call them cows,” Zoe said, still playing with her horses. “They sound like cows.”

I laughed. “They groan.”

“Hmmm . . . ,” Zoe said, thinking very hard. “What about ted? It rhymes with dead. ‘Oh, no! There is a ted! Hide! Run, Cooper! Shoot the ted, Scarlet!’ ” She made all sorts of faces while she acted out the different scenarios in which we might yell ted. Everyone was smiling, everyone but Scarlet.

“Why me? Why do I have to shoot the ted?” Scarlet asked.

“Because you’re the best shot,” Zoe said.

“I like you,” Scarlet said, smiling only with her eyes.

“I like you, too,” Zoe replied.

Scarlet lifted her arms and let them fall to her thighs. “All right, I’m sold on ted. Anyone disagree?”

Everyone shook their heads.

“Good choice, Zoe,” Cooper said.

Zoe smiled wider than I’d seen in years, and in that moment, it was easy to believe everything was going to be okay.