Dead Of Winter - A Post-Apocalyptic EMP Novel (Enter Darkness Book 2) Read online

  She nodded, stepping back. “I know,” she said. “I know that it might have. It’s just…none of that should have happened.”

  As much as he didn’t want to admit it, he knew exactly what she was talking about. It took everything he had to nod and keep his tone light and undemanding. “Then it won’t happen again,” he said.

  “I got a little…carried away,” she went on, twisting her fingers together and sneaking a quick look up at him without really meeting his eyes. “I like you a lot, Brad. That’s not the problem. And it wasn’t anything you did…but I just don’t think this is the right choice right now. I don’t want to make any rushed decisions based on…proximity. Do you understand? I mean, we might not even—”

  He held up his hand to stem the flow of words. Every single one of them hurt and all of them boiled down to a single, simple, truth: she didn’t want him like he wanted her.

  “It’s okay, Anna,” he said. “We’ll just go back to the way things were before. It’s really no big deal. Everyone gets carried away sometimes, and with the way we’ve been cooped up, it’s really no surprise that it happened. I’m fine with forgetting about it.”

  “Okay,” she said slowly. “That’s probably the best thing to do. Thanks.”

  He nodded as Anna stepped back into the room she shared with her son. Brad waited until she had closed the door before he sat down on the top step. He dropped his head into his hands and tried to shove down the feeling that he’d just lost something important. Something he’d wanted for a long time.

  It didn’t do any good to dwell on it, because no matter how long his feeling for her had been growing, there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it now. She simply didn’t feel the same way.

  He pushed himself to his feet and headed back down to the living room. He wanted a little more distance between them than the small hallway. At least for tonight.

  Chapter 7

  “Come on, Sammy. Pay attention.” Anna said as she tapped the paper she’d written out in a businesslike way. “I know you know how to do this.”

  Sammy rested his head in his hand and gave a heavy sigh. “Yeah, I guess,” he allowed. “But why do I have to?” he continued, his voice rising to a definite whine. “I don’t want to sit here and do math. I want to help Brad.”

  Brad looked up from the hole he was mending in one of the coats he’d found in the attic. It would be a little big for Sammy, but that would be all right. The snow had stopped the day after the bear attack, and they hadn’t had any more in the week that had gone by, but it was still ice-cold outside. The more layers he could give them, the better.

  He had done a pretty good job of being in a different room from Anna since the kiss they’d shared, but he hadn’t had a choice today. The solar panels weren’t working, despite Brad’s best efforts, and they needed to ration the lamp oil. The firelight was too finicky for threading a needle and for performing any kind of accurate stitching, so he couldn’t work in the living room. Anna had the lamp, therefore, Brad had to sit with her.

  It was probably for the best, anyway. Sammy wasn’t stupid. He had been able to tell that something was different between the two of them, despite their attempts to go back to being friendly with one another.

  Brad was more than willing to accept his share of the blame. After all, he’d been the one to suggest the liquor and the dance. He’d also been the one to kiss her. But, for the first time in his life, he wasn’t the one being awkward in the aftermath.

  Anna couldn’t look him in the eye anymore. She walked out of rooms if he walked into them. She spoke to him mainly through Sammy, which was easy because she took such care to never be in the same place at the same time. He couldn’t understand it.

  As far as he was concerned, they’d left things with a mutual understanding. The understanding wasn’t what he’d wanted, but he’d done his best to be back to his normal self the next day. Anna hadn’t. Even now, she was gazing determinedly down at the table rather than looking his way, and she’d only nodded in response to his explanation of why he’d needed the table.

  “It’s not exactly a two-man job, buddy,” he said in response to Sammy.

  The kid frowned and crossed his arms over his chest, clearly feeling like Brad had let him down. “There’s no point in doing this stupid school stuff,” he continued, his voice rising into a higher-pitched whine that Brad recognized as the precursor to a full-blown temper tantrum. He’d never seen Sammy behave this way, but he supposed everyone had their breaking point. For Sammy, it looked like that was math homework. “It doesn’t matter anymore,” he said.

  “Of course it does,” Anna said, her voice tense. Sammy wasn’t the only one on the verge of a meltdown, apparently.

  “Why?” Sammy asked again, turning his challenging gaze back to his mother, sensing with the weird accuracy that all kids develop that if he pushed her enough, it would become a fight and he would get out of at least some of what she wanted him to do.

  Brad wondered at what age kids learned to be the master manipulators they were. Or were they born that way and then simply forgot over time?

  “Why do I need to do this? How is it going to help me survive?”

  Anna opened her mouth and then closed it, clearly looking for a reason. “I…” she floundered. “Because—”

  Sensing that she was on the verge of the universally hated “because I said so”, guaranteed to prolong any argument, Brad cut in. “Because eventually, people will probably find a way to come together as a society again. You don’t want to be the only one who can’t do math, right?”

  Sammy’s arms slowly uncrossed as he began to think about this new possibility. “Do you really think they will?” he asked.

  Anna and Brad had talked about it a little when Sammy wasn’t around. Before things had gotten so stilted, that is.

  Anna had agreed with Brad that the possibility was good. Even with such a small population, they were sure to find other survivors at some point. The existence of the soldiers pretty much proved that, even if they weren’t the ones they were planning to invite for tea.

  Brad had agreed with Anna that talking about it in front of Sammy could be tricky. It would realistically be years before things settled back into any kind of normal routine, and that concept could be hard for a nine-year-old boy to understand. Neither of them wanted him thinking it could happen in a few weeks.

  He needed a distraction now, though, and it was the only logical reason Brad could really think of for why Anna had decided Sammy needed to be back in school. Honestly, he thought that she was simply using it as an excuse to have something to do. Or, at the very least, something to do that didn’t involve him. But he would play fair and not sell her out by telling Sammy about that.

  “I don’t know for sure,” Brad said. “But probably.” When Sammy looked skeptical, he continued. “Mankind has always had a way of seeking each other out. I mean, it will take a while, but I’d be kind of surprised if it doesn’t happen. There might even be schools again, and you definitely don’t want to be the only one that doesn’t know his multiplication tables.”

  “I did really well in my math class at home,” Sammy said indignantly.

  “Yeah?” Brad asked, making sure to look mildly skeptical.

  “Yeah,” Sammy said, giving a very firm nod as he spoke. “My teacher always wrote ‘good job’ at the top of my homework and she usually gave me stickers, too.”

  “Then this shouldn’t be too hard for you,” Brad said, looking at the problems Anna had written out on the chalkboard he’d found in the attic. “The threes are super easy. I bet you could move up the fours by bedtime, if you really tried.”

  “It’s not too hard,” Sammy said quickly. “I’ll finish up the threes now. Mom, can you write out the fours on another piece of paper?”

  Once the boy had worked out the equations and Brad had expressed a proper amount of surprise that he’d managed it so quickly, Sammy went on to the next one. He bent his head studiousl
y over the page and began writing, his lips moving slightly as he calculated the answers.

  Brad looked over at Anna, hoping for some kind of acknowledgement. She’d been looking at him, but she jerked her gaze away when their eyes met, going back to writing out the next set of multiplication tables on the back of the paper she’d used for the threes. He was glad that she was reusing the paper, but would it really kill her to look at him?

  He bent his head over his own work, sewing more rapidly now. The feeling of the cabin closing in around him intensified until it felt like he couldn’t take a deep breath. He finished the last stitch and cut the thread. Then he stood up pushing his chair under the table so abruptly that both Anna and Sammy looked up at him.

  “Here’s your new jacket,” he said to Sammy. “I’m going out to do that supply run.”

  Anna stared at him, finally shocked into speech. “Are you sure? It’s been so cold. And it’s already past noon.”

  He shrugged. He wouldn’t have cared if it was pitch dark outside. The tension in the cabin now that they’d spent time in the same room was so thick he could have cut it with a knife. He needed to get out of there before the walls closed in or before he said something he’d regret.

  “I’ve got plenty of cold-weather gear,” he said. “And if I leave now, it won’t be too late when I get back. Is there anything you want me to keep an eye out for?”

  She shook her head, looking back down at the table. Her voice was cool when she said, “You probably know what we need better than I do. I trust your judgement.”

  “Popcorn,” Sammy said, looking up from his math. “I really, really, want popcorn.”

  Thank God for that kid.

  Brad chuckled. “Okay, Sammy. I’ll do my best to find some when I’m out.”

  Brad headed up to his room and pulled his box of clothes up onto the bed, where he upended it so that everything spilled out. He took his time looking through them, figuring out the best way to outfit himself for the trip. He was eager to leave, but he wasn’t stupid. Dying on the road wasn’t an appealing prospect, and this was going to be the farthest away from home he’d been since finding Anna and Sammy again.

  The thermal underwear was the obvious place to start, so he pulled it on. Brad wasn’t the biggest fan of the stuff, mainly because of how tightly it fit. He would feel mildly claustrophobic all day, but at least he’d be warm. Once he’d pulled that on and fidgeted around until he was reasonably comfortable in it, he selected a heavy fleece shirt and tugged that on as well. He laid out a waterproof coat, but he didn’t put that on yet.

  An extra pair of wool socks went on before he pulled his boots back on. That might be another thing to look for. His boots were in good condition, but how long would they stay that way, with the constant wear they saw? He made a mental note to look around for a replacement, although he knew that the odds of finding a pair of boots in his size probably weren’t great. He laced his boots tightly and looked out the window.

  Even though it wasn’t snowing, the sky was gray. The snow hadn’t melted, but it had iced over, leaving a hard look to what should have been a storybook scene. He pressed his palm to the glass to try to get an idea of the temperature. He guessed that it was somewhere between fifteen and twenty. For October, it should have been an average of forty.

  Maybe something else was wrong. Realistically, he knew that an EMP wouldn’t affect the weather. This would have been a rough winter even if he’d had power. As he’d told Anna, weird weather happened sometimes. But still, he couldn’t escape the feeling of desolation that settled over him, and that desolation shivered right on the edge of fear.

  He pushed back at the emotion, turning back to the bed and pulling on his jacket, scarf, hat, and gloves. Fear didn’t accomplish anything. Fear kept a person still when they should be moving and muddled when they should be clear.

  The pep talk to himself didn’t help. He couldn’t push away the sense that he was trapped. A whole winter stuck here. A whole winter of Anna trying her level best to avoid him. He should have known better. Hell, he had known better—he’d simply ignored his better instincts. That knowledge was salt in the wound as he walked down the stairs, stopping only to tell Sammy goodbye and grab one of the big backpacks he’d hung in the hall.

  He slung it over his shoulders as he stepped out onto the porch, loosening the straps so that it would fit over his winter coat before he headed down the walkway and plunged into the woods, turning left. He hadn’t ventured south of the cabin since he’d arrived, so he moved cautiously.

  The woods were pretty much the same, but he’d expected that. He still knew them like the back of his hand this close to the cabin. Snow crackled under his boots as he broke through the icy top layer. The uncomfortable realization that he would be very easy to track occurred to him, but he pushed it away. Who would be tracking him, anyway?

  There was a whooshing thud a few yards to his right and Brad had to hold back a yelp as he spun around to see what had caused it. He didn’t see anything. Then, it happened again, and he realized that it was snow falling from the branches in the wind that had kicked up suddenly.

  “Get it together,” he muttered to himself, but he found himself walking faster and coming out of the woods sooner than he’d intended to.

  There was a cluster of cabins on the lake that had all been owned by the same company. The majority of them were vacation rentals, so his hopes weren’t high that he would find much. A few of them had been privately owned, though, so it was worth a look through.

  As he walked closer, he noticed something odd. The windows to each and every cabin had been broken. Not just the ones on the lower levels, either. Every single pane of glass was shattered.

  Something about the deliberate destruction was frightening. Maybe because it was so needless. What had been the purpose? Glass was impossible to replace right now. Even if a survivor happened to come across these cabins, they wouldn’t be able to use them, now.

  Brad walked up onto the porch of the closest cabin and looked into the house through the broken front window. It was the only one that had been broken from the outside. He could see the glass scattered over the oak floor on the other side. And that was pretty much all he saw.

  The cabin was completely empty, from what he could see. Even the furniture was gone. Brad frowned. Was there someone out there who was super interested in post-apocalyptic interior design? Logically, of course, he knew it was more likely that the furniture had been used for firewood. That was no less unnerving, though, and it raised a few questions. He ducked in through the window and walked through the main room.

  The only things left were things that wouldn’t burn. There was a computer lying on its side in the corner, which told him that this was probably one of the cabins that had been bought by someone. The big television still hung on the wall over the cold fireplace, but the screen had been smashed in. A sheen caught his eye and he saw a huge stack of DVDs to the side of the white brick. The cases that the discs had been in were there, too, but the paper inserts had been taken. Someone had literally taken everything that would burn out of this cabin.

  They hadn’t burned it here, though; there was no sign that a fire had been kindled in that white brick fireplace. He hadn’t seen any evidence of flames on the grounds as he’d walked in, either. That meant that someone had carried it all away. And he didn’t think that one person, or even two, would be able to make a haul like that. Not unless they came every single day for months at a time. And who would do that?

  For that matter, who would do this? If he was dealing with another small group of survivors, why had they taken so much? They wouldn’t need a whole houseful of furniture to burn, not when there were so many trees. It was a crazy amount of work for no good reason.

  He glanced into the kitchen and found that the same thing had happened there. The windows that looked onto the back deck and the lake were shattered. Even the glass door in the gleaming stainless steel oven door was broken. So was the glas
s over the face of the clock that had hung on the wall near the kitchen table. He picked up one of the shards with his gloved fingers and looked at it. Why the hell had someone done this? It seemed almost like teenage vandalism, but it was just so damn methodical.

  It could have been the soldiers, he supposed. They had mentioned the looting they’d done, and they’d had a big enough truck to carry a fair amount of stuff. There was also no proof that this had happened recently.

  Snow had blown into the cabin during the storm. It piled in drifts at the baseboards in the kitchen. That would mean that the windows had to have been shattered at least a week ago, but it could have been even longer than that. There was no way to tell. Hell, it could have happened over the summer, before he’d even gotten anywhere near the place.

  But somehow, he doubted it. He couldn’t put his finger on why, he just knew that he wanted to get away from this strange, empty house as fast as possible. The same feeling that had pushed him through the woods led him back through the largely unexplored house and out the cabin door, every hair on the back of his neck seeming to stand at attention.

  Brad tossed away the shard of glass that he’d forgotten he was carrying and jogged back down the porch steps, getting away from the place as fast as he could without flat-out running. He had gone nearly to the edge of the woods again before he got himself under control. His heart was pounding and it wasn’t from the exercise. He’d come here to loot and he was being scared off by pieces of broken glass.

  “Okay,” he said to himself. “Yeah, it’s weird as fuck. But it’s empty.” He scanned the tree line and didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. There was no excuse to leave empty-handed.

  Brad turned and went back, approaching the next house determinedly. The windows there were smashed as well, but he’d expected that much, at least. Would the rest of the house be the same? If it was as empty, he didn’t know if he could stand it.

  He swallowed hard and walked up, looking in. Relief filled him when he saw that there was still furniture in place. He listened carefully once he’d stepped in through the window. Not hearing any noise, he continued.