Blood Runs Cold (Stone Cold Fear Book 2) Page 11

  What it didn’t explain was the firepower or the goggles.

  Pete wished they hadn’t felt compelled to lie. Each lie gave birth to a detail he’d have to keep track of, and if he and Marie were spoken to separately, it could be a disaster. He was tempted to recant and tell Merle the truth, but kept his mouth shut. Honestly, he didn’t know if it was going to be any better—or any worse—if they knew he was with the National Guard, and Marie was a reporter.

  He wasn’t sure he wanted to find out.

  Jack peeled away and went into one of the buildings across the street while Pete and Marie followed Merle down the length of one more building. There, Merle approached the door, knocked twice, and invited them inside.

  To Pete’s left, the interior looked like anyone’s home. There was a sitting room at the front and dining room next to it. On the right, there’d been no attempt to dress up the cargo container except to paint the walls, floor, and ceiling with one of those gray, rust-free paints. In that part of the structure he saw six looms with chairs in front of each, and a long metal table running along the front wall. The delineation between the two spaces was so sharp, it appeared as though two different containers had been cut in half and joined.

  “Take off your boots,” Merle said pleasantly enough, kicking off his own and setting them on a rubber mat. He went into the sitting room and began to stoke the fire burning in a cast-iron stove.

  Marie looked at Pete, raised her eyebrows, and then started to take off her boots. Pete followed suit, wishing there was some plausible reason for him to leave his boots on. If they had to run, putting them back on would take time they likely wouldn’t have.

  Marie removed her pack and handed it to him and he set it against the wall, along with his own. There was a coat tree by the front door, so he hung their coats on it. He rubbed his hands together briskly to get the blood circulating quickly, then pressed Marie’s digits between his palms.

  “This little beauty will heat the space in no time,” Merle said as he replaced the lid on the stove. “Come, have a seat.”

  “I thought you’d never ask,” Marie replied, heading straight to the seat closest to the stove. She reached with her hands and continued rubbing them together. “Oh, my. This feels wonderful.”

  Pete entered the sitting room but chose a seat closer to the exit. Yes, the heat felt good. No, he wasn’t going to get too comfortable.

  Merle gave him a knowing look. “We’ll wait for Thomas. He’s our ‘sheriff.’” He put the word in air quotes.

  “I’m sorry,” Marie said. “Why the air quotes?”

  “Sheriff. Bossman. Mayor of Clearview. Take your pick.”

  “A Thomas of all trades,” Marie said, and gave Merle a big smile. “Can you tell us what’s going on? There doesn’t seem to be power anywhere.”

  Merle explained that there’d been a monstrous solar flare and the resulting electromagnetic pulse had knocked out all electronics, as well as the power grid.

  “The authorities must be working to get things back in order though, right?” Marie settled her hands in her lap, the very picture of calm, cool, and collected.

  “Authorities,” Merle said, voice loaded with scorn. “Ma’am, this isn’t the kind of thing a government is going to be able to fix any time soon. You’re looking at the status quo right now.” Merle indicated the cast-iron stove and the oil lamp sitting on the coffee table. “Actually, I should have said the presidential suite or cream of the crop. Most folks won’t even have this much.”

  “But Jack was wearing night-vision goggles,” Pete pointed out. “How’s that possible if all the electronics are out?”

  “The people of Clearview made a decision to live off the grid.” Merle must have thought he saw something in their expressions, because he continued. “I know. I know. There are those who call people like us crazy, but soon enough, they’ll be calling us geniuses and prophets. We’re completely self-sufficient here without electricity or cellphones or television.”

  “That still doesn’t explain the night-vision goggles,” Pete pressed, though he wondered if it was a mistake. He wanted answers, but he didn’t want to piss off their host when the other option was to head back out into the storm. If they were even allowed to leave.

  Merle stared at him for a moment, and Pete almost took it back, but then Merle said, “Faraday cage. You ever heard of one of those?”

  Marie answered before Pete could. “No, sir. What’s that?”

  Merle explained that they were made of conductive mesh and absorbed the electromagnetism of the pulse that followed the solar flare. To protect the things stored inside of them.

  Marie made sounds of wonder, egging Merle on as though he was the most fascinating man alive. From a conversation they’d had back at the prison, Pete knew Marie was more than capable of explaining the workings of a Faraday cage, and he hid a smirk with a cough.

  He had to hand it to her: she was really, really good at this.

  “Do you have landlines?” Marie asked, the very picture of innocence. “I’d love to call my family. Let them know I’m safe.”

  “No phones. They’d have gone offline because of the EMP, anyway.”

  Pete waited for Merle to say more, but he didn’t. He could see that Marie wanted to push him, see if she could get anything else out of him, so Pete gave the slightest shake of his head to warn her off. He didn’t think Merle was going to give them anything else, and he didn’t want her pissing the guy off.

  That didn’t stop the questions from rolling through his mind. Why did a town so small have a Faraday cage? It was one thing to live off the grid, but to have had the foresight to save some of their electronics felt off.

  The front door opened briefly, then, letting in a draught of frigid air, and a huge man stomped a couple of times to knock the snow off his boots, then came inside.

  Merle stood at once and went to the man’s side. “Let me take that for you, Thomas.”

  Thomas handed Merle his coat, then bent to untie the laces of his boots.

  Pete stood, nodding at Marie that she should do so as well. It was important for them to get off on the right foot, even though the whole setup was more than a little shady. Eye rolls and meaningful glances hardly covered it.

  The pecking order was very clear, both in Merle’s deferential behavior and in Thomas’s clear expectation of being catered to, and Pete’s creep meter ticked up several notches. Something was very, very weird about this town.

  Once Thomas had his boots off, he strode into the sitting room.

  “I’m Thomas Wilson,” he said, and offered Pete his hand.

  Pete shook the man’s hand, which engulfed his so thoroughly it reminded him of being a child. Thomas didn’t play the game of crushing Pete’s hand to show him who was boss, though. He had plenty of authority in his eyes and in his bearing. Clearly, he didn’t feel a small man’s need for one-upmanship. Hand-crushing was something Captain Sadler would have done.

  When Thomas took Marie’s hand, he cupped it gently. “It’s been a while since I’ve had a woman as lovely as you in my house.”

  “I’m sure that isn’t true,” Marie muttered, smoothing her hair.

  Was she acting? Playing along with Thomas’s flirting? Or was she taken in by the man’s charisma? Pete felt an unexpected, and stupid, pang of jealousy—which he would examine later, when their lives weren’t on the line.

  Thomas asked for their story, and Marie nodded that Pete should go ahead. Pete told their agreed-upon version, adding an embellishment here and there to make it seem detailed enough to be true. He was glad Marie was here, since it meant she’d be working with the same story if—and when—they were split up.

  “It sounds like you folks have had quite an adventure,” Thomas said.

  “That’s one way to put it,” Marie replied dryly.

  “I’m assuming you’d like a place to stay,” Thomas said. “For the night, if not longer.”

  “Yes, please,” Marie said earnes
tly. “Jack told us there are no hotels in town, though I suppose if nothing electronic is working, we’d have no way to pay.”

  “Do you mind sharing a room?” Thomas asked.

  “Not at all,” Marie said.

  “I’d offer you a hot shower, but I’m afraid that can’t happen until tomorrow,” he continued. “Storm’s causing a few problems.”

  Marie’s eyes filled with tears. “A hot shower. I’m sure I’ve never heard more beautiful words spoken aloud.”

  Thomas led them through a doorway to the rear of the container, where the kitchen was located. “With this kind of construction, it’s important to section off areas. It makes the place easier to heat.”

  “I’m impressed by the amount of thought you’ve put into everything we’ve seen so far,” Pete said.

  Thomas appeared to be pleased by the compliment. “Take care on the stairs,” he said to Marie, and linked his arm through hers to guide her up them. They were closer to a ladder in steepness, but with rungs the depth of a normal stair. The construction meant very little wasted space.

  The room Thomas took them to was at the back of the house. It had its own wood stove and a chimney pipe that exited through the top of the cargo container.

  Thomas lifted the stove’s lid and struck a long match, and in moments the wood inside caught. Pete wondered whether he laid the fire in readiness or just had his people doing it for him. He seemed like the kind of man who’d want people doing the menial work, though at the same time he had an air of self-sufficiency about him.

  None of that explained why there was a fire already laid in the guest room. Had these people been… expecting them?

  Most of the floor was covered by a thick area rug. The bed was queen-sized and sported a puffy quilt that Pete assumed would be light and warm at the same time. There was a patterned blanket folded in half at the foot of the bed.

  Cozy, he thought. So cozy as to be almost fake.

  Thomas cleared his throat. “If you want the room to remain toasty, you’ll have to get up and add to the fire in the middle of the night. Only once. These things are pretty efficient. The iron radiates a lot of heat.” He set the stove’s lid in place and indicated the nearby basket of wood. “My room is at the front of the container. If you need anything, holler. The kitchen’s right downstairs if you get hungry. We’ll talk more in the morning.”

  “We can’t thank you enough,” Pete said.

  “Tomorrow, you can pitch in clearing the snow if you want to say thanks the Clearview way.”

  “We’ll be happy to help in any way we can,” Marie said.

  Thomas took his leave without saying anything else, and Pete closed their bedroom door and pressed his ear against it, listening to make sure he actually left.

  “Where’d he go?” Marie asked.

  “I’m pretty sure he went back downstairs.”

  Marie nodded and began shedding her clothing. “I’m not getting into this beautiful clean bed in these filthy clothes.”

  Pete followed her lead and undressed down to his underwear, though he wondered if it was a good idea. He wasn’t sure he trusted Thomas yet. The man had been friendly enough, but there was still the issue of the bizarre houses. The fact that Thomas seemed to be some sort of king here. The ready-made fire in his guest room that indicated that he was expecting someone.

  The people of Clearview may have chosen to live off the grid, but this was more than that. It was almost like they’d been expecting this very thing to happen—and had gone out of their way to prepare for it.

  Which made him very, very suspicious.

  Marie was already snuggling under the quilt. “Heaven,” she said with a sigh.

  Pete climbed into the bed as well—and realized, too late, how close and undressed she was.

  Now is not the time, Marshall.

  “I wonder if we should tell them about Mueller,” Marie said. “So they can be prepared in case the convicts show up here.”

  “I think they’re already pretty well prepared, but we’ll see how things play out tomorrow.”

  “They’re completely off the grid. It’s so… strange. I want to talk to some of the inhabitants, find out how it all works. Did you see the looms?” She snorted. “Of course you saw the looms. You’d have to be blind to miss them.” She sat up and pulled the blanket up to her chin. “I bet they made this here.”

  She paused, and though the lights were low, he could see the frown on her face.

  “This place doesn’t feel right,” she said. “I can’t put my finger on it, but something’s wrong. And you felt it, too.”

  It wasn’t a question. Because she’d seen the look on his face, and the tenseness of his shoulders. She must have.

  “You’re right,” he said. “Something’s wrong here. I just don’t know what it is.”

  He couldn’t shake the bad feeling he had brewing inside. The suspicion. The firearms. The goggles. None of it added up to friendly small-town folk who just wanted to live how they wanted to live, and do their own thing.

  “No matter what, eyes open and head on a swivel.”

  “I think you mean a post,” Marie said with a smile in her voice. “Good night, Pete.”

  “Good night.”

  Pete continued to turn the conundrum of Clearview over in his mind for a while. He prided himself on his gut instincts, what he called his “this isn’t right” radar. Except he hadn’t heard the slightest ping at the ranger station, and look how that had turned out. Now the thing was pinging like crazy, but he couldn’t figure out why.

  Maybe I’m just full of shit. Maybe his gut instincts were his own way of self-aggrandizement. Maybe he just couldn’t buy that they’d had some good luck for a change. Who knew? He didn’t.

  Sleep was surprisingly slow to come. He lay in bed a long while, listening to Marie’s deep and even breathing, and thinking about the pang of jealousy he’d felt when she had flirted with Thomas. He could count her many strengths, except no matter their number, the count always ended with but—

  But—she could be reckless, and he couldn’t shake the feeling that she was only here because she had to be. He had no claim on her, and she didn’t have any claim on him. They were just traveling along the same road right now, that was all.

  And with that, he closed his eyes and willed himself to sleep. This time, he succeeded.

  Chapter 12

  The sound of movement in the house woke him. He rolled out of bed, taking care not to disturb Marie, who was still sleeping, and went to the tiny window. Judging by the angle of the sun, it was early. The smell of cooking bacon was wafting into the room, though, so someone was definitely up. He added a couple of pieces of wood to the stove.

  “Am I dreaming, or do I smell bacon?” Marie said.

  “If you’re dreaming, I’m having the same dream.”

  Someone tapped softly at the door.

  “Hang on,” Pete said, and pulled on his pants.

  He opened the door to a middle-aged woman bearing two plates of food.

  “Breakfast in bed,” she said as she passed Pete the plates. “It’s a one-time thing, so you better enjoy it.” Her smile let Pete know there was no ill will in the statement. “Also, in about ten minutes the power will be turned on. That’s when you’ll get hot and cold running water in the bathroom. It stays on for about twenty minutes.”

  “How in the world do you have running water?” Marie asked.

  “You probably couldn’t see them when you arrived, because of the snowstorm, but we have several windmills running, and a room full of batteries to store power.”

  “That’s the best news we’ve had in days,” Pete said, and thanked her for the hospitality.

  The woman took her leave, and as soon as the door closed behind her, Marie said, “Rock paper scissors to see who goes first?”

  “You can go first,” Pete said. “Just don’t use up the whole twenty minutes.” He passed Marie her plate of food, sat down, and dug into his. Bacon, eggs,
and fried potatoes had never tasted so good.

  “Did you know that the expression ‘Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater’ came from the days before hot and cold running water?” Marie asked. “It was a lot of work to fill a tub with water, so families used to bathe one after the other, usually oldest first. By the time it was the baby’s turn, the water was no longer clear. Hence the expression.”

  “You are a fount of knowledge,” Pete said.

  “Aren’t I, though?”

  A bell sounded outside, and Pete looked up.

  “I assume that’s the signal,” he said.

  Marie leaped out of bed and trotted into the bathroom. Moments later, he heard the tap turn on, and shortly after that, Marie’s groan of pleasure.

  “The soap smells amazing,” she called. “I wonder if they make it themselves.”

  It took her ten minutes to get through her shower, and she was moaning the entire time. When she finished, she came out wrapped in a towel. “That might have been the best shower I’ve ever had in my life. You should get down on your knees and praise me for leaving enough time for you.”

  Pete got up and hustled into the shower himself, taking a moment to just stand in the hot water and appreciate the very idea of it. The warmth on his skin. The feeling of being clean. This place might be worthwhile just for the shower, and damn the vibes. It was yet another simple pleasure he’d taken for granted.

  He sure hoped the government was working on an answer to the lack of electricity. He hoped they had their smartest fucking people on it.

  When he was finished, he returned to the bedroom. “I wish I didn’t have to put dirty clothes on,” he said.

  “You don’t,” Marie said. “The woman who brought us breakfast delivered these.” She held out a stack of clean, folded clothing.

  Pete took the ones meant for him, too shocked and suspicious once again to have an immediate answer. What the hell were these people doing with clothes for visitors… if they hadn’t expected visitors?

  “She sure guessed right,” Marie said, zipping the pants up. They were better suited to winter conditions than what they’d been wearing, with a waterproof, windproof outer shell and fleece lining. The top was a heavy polar-fleece sweatshirt with a flocked lining, and the woman had included two pairs of thick woolen socks.