Eden's Promise (4 page)

“I had a bit of a journey. Are my folks doing okay?” His voice was rough, as if he hadn’t used it much lately. He set the dog on the deck with a soft command to stay.

She wanted to embrace him, to welcome him home. That he’d found his way here meant that her sister might still be okay, a hope she and her mother had been letting go, piece by piece. Eden had wanted to go look for Kelly, after her father’s death, but no one would accompany her and she was too afraid to go alone.

“They’re fine. Your mother will be over the moon to see you.” Knowing she couldn’t hug him, she squeezed his arm.

She stepped back, welcoming him to walk past her onto the dock. Josh, Joey and Damien didn’t move. He set the dog down, then lifted an eyebrow at Eden.
 

“Friends of yours?”

She introduced them quickly and the men parted reluctantly to let him pass, the dog clicking along beside them. Eden thought Damien tensed just a little more than necessary when the newcomer walked by. A glance from Aaron told her he noticed it, too.

“How is everything out here?” Aaron asked. “Supplies? Health? Power?”

“We don’t have power, but we have fresh water from the wells, and my father had started laying in supplies years ago, worried about this very thing. Add to that, we have groups that go covertly to the mainland to liberate what they can. And not too long after everything went to hell, a ship sank to the north and we were able to retrieve a lot of the cargo.” She didn’t tell him what had happened to the surviving crew. She was pretty sure her father and Damien hadn’t known she knew. “We don’t let many newcomers stay, unless they have skills that would be useful to us, and we’re pretty strict on rationing what we do have. We lost a few people this winter because of the flu. My father died, Mr. Wyatt had a heart attack and died, and one of the new women was diabetic and couldn’t survive without her insulin.” She wanted to hear what he had to say, about what he’d seen, but she was sure the rest of the town wanted to hear, too, and she didn’t want to make him relive it more than he needed to.

“I didn’t see many boats in the harbor. Did a lot of people leave?”

She drew in a breath. “No. Right after—everything changed, a couple of teenagers wanted to go see what was going on. They left and never returned. Another crew of men went to look for them. They never returned, either. My father had all the boats but a very few sunk. The ones you see belong to the newcomers and are used for fishing and occasional runs to the mainland.”

“Have you been?” he asked with a nod toward her holstered pistol.

She shook her head. “Not yet.”

“Good.”

She held onto her curiosity about the meaning of that comment as they walked down the main street of town leading from the harbor.
 

“Sure as hell looks like nothing has changed,” he murmured.
 

“We’ve worked hard for that. There’s some frustration of course. We eat a lot of vegetables and fish, are very strict with the butchering schedule, with hunting. I’d kill for a hamburger some days. But everyone understands we’re working for the survival of us all.”

“We,” he repeated. “Your father was the mayor, as I recall. Who’s in charge now?”

“Vince Lopez. You probably don’t remember him, but he was the harbor master here. In addition, Damien and I share a lot of the responsibility. Damien is more on security and I’m more on rationing and supplies. Everyone is getting along, and we all work together to come up with solutions. We’ve pretty much transferred to a bartering system. Some of the stores are still open, but supplies of course are limited. Your mom and Mrs. Reynolds do a lot of sewing, but since there isn’t too much fabric, we have some interesting fashion trends happening.”

“I refuse to believe my mom didn’t have much fabric.”

Eden allowed herself a smile—her face felt so odd doing that these days. “She had quite a lot, but not great lengths of any one kind, so there are some patchwork-looking clothes around. Then my mom and Mrs. Wyatt do a lot of canning. Most of that is evenly distributed, but we keep it in the grocery store. We’ve created ration coupons for everyone to use every month. If we have something special, like when the ship wrecked, we divide it up as evenly as possible, then barter the surplus.”

He was looking at her oddly. “You were just a kid when I left. You can’t be, what, twenty?”

She bristled. “I just turned twenty-five. I was in middle school when you left.” Her face heated at the admission that she remembered.
 

“Have you been here the entire time?”

“I left to go to college, became an engineer and moved home. My dad wanted me nearby—he was always afraid something like this would happen. And after Kelly left, well, I didn’t want to hurt them by leaving.”

“Ah, Kelly.” His expression softened. “How is she?”

“We don’t know. We hadn’t heard from her for awhile before everything hit the fan. We only know she was in Washington. No idea now.”

He glanced over, sympathy in his eyes. “Sorry to hear that.”

She wanted to ask him what that meant, if Kelly had a chance of surviving over there, but she couldn’t bring herself to ask it, yet.

“What about you?” he asked. “Did you get married? Have kids?”

“No.” Marriage seemed like such a far-away concept now. She missed sex, she missed companionship, but marriage in these times seemed outdated and indulgent. And kids were out of the question, not adding more mouths with such limited supplies. “You?”

“Married, no kids, thank God. She died last fall in the riots.”

“I’m sorry, Aaron.” She’d heard about the riots from others who’d come, how people invaded homes and killed the owners to raid their supplies, how neighbor turned on neighbor. She shuddered to think of what his wife must have suffered.

He shook his head, indicating he didn’t want to talk about it.
 

“So who’s this?” She motioned to the dog.

“That’s Huck. We met up in about Arizona. He was a pretty scrawny fellow, not quite full-grown. He came up on me when I was eating in a gas station. You could tell he hadn’t been around people, but he knew people could help him. I opened a couple of cans of bean dip and sausages for him. He’s been with me ever since. Good guard dog.” He scratched the dog on the top of his head.

People emerged from houses and storefronts when they saw the entourage passing. Some murmured Aaron’s name, others coming forward, clapping him on the back, embracing him. Eden eased back to watch as he slowed, smiled and greeted each by name. Not only was he a returning hero, he was hope for the families who had been cut off from their loved ones on the mainland.

A cry made the crowd separate, and Mary Jenkins made her way through the hole they created, edging sideways until she stood in front of her son. She stumbled and he caught her up in his arms, holding her tight, swinging her in a circle while Huck barked wildly. Tears blurred Eden’s vision and she covered her hand with her mouth as the woman clung to Aaron, her face buried in his shoulder, sobs wracking her body. Aaron murmured to her, stroking her hair, his own eyes wet. He set her down on shaky legs and had to steady her. She pressed her hands to his cheeks as if she couldn’t believe she was seeing him, and he held onto her hands.

Then his father pressed through and wrapped them both in his arms. The crowd, so eager to hear his news, eased back, allowing the family this private moment. Eden was one of the last to turn away, and when she did, she returned home to hug her own mother.

***

That night they held a celebration in the town square, complete with the lard lanterns and a roasted pig and desserts someone had made with one of the last cans of condensed milk. Even amid the celebration, Eden worried about their stores. They needed to go for supplies soon. And they needed to start thinking long-term. Could they stay on the island forever? Did they want to?

Damien and his team ate in shifts, then returned to patrolling the shore. Eden wanted to tell Damien to take a day off but they couldn’t risk it. If Aaron had found the island, others could, too.

After the dinner, where rumors bounced from one table to another about what Aaron had said he’d seen, Aaron stood near the buffet table, arms folded over his chest, and began to describe his journey. The town grew silent as his low voice carried across the square.

“My understanding of what happened was that it was a terror attack,” he began. “Not just on the United States but all of Europe, designed to topple the world economy, and it did a hell of a job. It had to be very precisely planned and timed, but it took out all computers, so that’s why we lost television and radio.”

“Do they know who did it?”

He shook his head. “It could have been any number of people who wanted to turn back the clock, but the prevailing belief is that it originated in the Middle East. That’s where we spent the next months fighting, anyway. That it happened on Election Day was not a coincidence.”

“Who is the president?” Eden asked. “Is there a government?”

He blew out a breath. “They say Belden defeated Stephens, but there was no way to tell with the computers down, so Stephens remained in office, which caused a whole other kind of uprising. Something that might have been manageable before suddenly became fuel for the fire, and the riots were bad. A lot of units were called home to enforce martial law, and a lot of the guys left the service to go take care of their own families in the resulting chaos.”

Someone said something about “AWOL,” and he nodded.
 

“There are probably more AWOL soldiers than soldiers in the service right now. My unit was left in Afghanistan, but the more we heard about what was going on at home, the more we didn’t give a shit about who caused it. We just wanted to go home and take care of our families.”

“That’s just what the terrorists want! To leave us vulnerable!” John Reynolds exclaimed.

“We are vulnerable,” Aaron said softly. “Terrorists didn’t kill my wife. Her neighbors did. By the time I reached her, it was too late. Her body was still in our little house, and had been for months.”

Murmurs ran through the crowd.
 

“Are there no cars?” someone asked.

“No gas,” he replied. “There are some cars, sure, but you can’t exactly stockpile gas like you do canned goods. And a lot of the pumps are nothing but computers. Not many old-fashioned ones. So the gas is underground if you can figure out how to get it out. I’m sure some have. I was able to ride part of the way, and then I found a horse. Had to make my way around the mountains to get to Texas. And I knew, as I passed through towns that had been abandoned, towns that had been burned to the ground, that I wouldn’t see her alive, because I hadn’t been there to protect her.” He took a moment, stating at the ground in front of him. “You know how long it took us to lose our humanity? Just a few months. Just a few months of being without what most people in the world are without their whole lives. People killing each other for food, for clothing, for pleasure, because there’s very little law enforcement. People stealing from stores, from each other. People—” He stopped, shaking his head. “People doing unspeakable things to each other.”

“Did you think about going to the army?” someone asked.

“I did. I joined a local militia for a bit, but they were as corrupt as everyone else. I wanted more than anything to come home.” He sent a warm look at where his parents were sitting, arms around each other, tears in their eyes. “Was scared to death about what I’d find. Thank God for Edward McKay and his paranoia, right?”

“Now what will you do?” Damien asked.

“Sleep for a few days,” Aaron said with a chuckle. “Hard to sleep when you’re looking over your shoulder all the time. Then I’ll see what I can do to help you keep this place safe.”
 

Damien didn’t like that, Eden could tell. He had no intention of giving up his job as a leader in this place.

Chapter Three

Eden didn’t see much of Aaron the next few days. She figured he was probably sleeping, like he said. And spending time with his parents, who’d come in for additional supplies with another mouth to feed, looking younger than they had in months.
 

But a few days later, Aaron and Huck sauntered down to the park, where Eden and Damien were working on hand-to-hand combat. Eden grew a little flustered when Aaron leaned against the tree and folded his arms over his chest to watch. Huck sat beside him, his entire body quivering with the desire to run and play. But Aaron had given a command and the pup obeyed.

Damien took her down hard. She saw stars as she stared up at the sky. But she’d be damned if she would stay down, and jumped to her feet, not quite as gracefully as she would have liked, but she was up, and ready to go again. She braced herself with her feet apart and struck toward the side of Damien’s neck. He captured her wrist and pivoted her so her back was against his chest. She tensed, her hand tightening around his forearm, and bent, flipping him over her shoulder and onto his back.
 

She stepped back, out of his reach, and grinned at Aaron.