The Darkest Place: A Surviving the Dead Novel (14 page)

Hollow Rock, Tennessee

At almost two o’clock in the morning, Miranda finally spoke up.

“Why Tyrel?” she asked.

“Huh?” Caleb replied.

“Why did your father pair you up with Tyrel? Seems to me he should have asked Mike along and left you to look after Sophia and your stepmother.”

Caleb shrugged. “Objectivity.”

“What do you mean?”

“Dad knew nobody would fight harder to protect Sophia—and by default, Lauren—than Mike. And if we paired up, he would spend more time worrying about me than focusing on what he was doing. That’s the kind of thing that could get both of us killed. Besides, he knew I could handle myself, and I was in good hands with Tyrel.”

Miranda traced her fingernails down the ridges of Caleb’s abdomen, raising goosebumps on his skin. “Seems awfully … impersonal.”

“Dad was a pragmatist,” Caleb said defensively. “He knew how to take his emotions out of the equation and think clearly. It was the right call.”

“I don’t know if I could have done that.”

“You don’t have the training my father had.”

“What about you?” Miranda asked, raising up on one elbow and looking Caleb in the eye. For once, despite the fact she wasn’t wearing any clothes, he wasn’t distracted by the view. “Would you have made the same decision in his place?”

It struck Caleb he had never asked himself that question. “I don’t know, honestly.”

Miranda leaned down and kissed his forehead. “I want to hear the rest, but I’m having trouble keeping my eyes open.”

“I’m pretty tired too. I’ll tell you the rest tomorrow. What I have time for, anyway.”

Miranda snuggled her head in the hollow of his shoulder and breathed deeply. “I’ll hold you to that.”

Minutes later, Miranda’s breathing slowed and she became heavy against his side. For Caleb, sleep was much longer in coming.

*****

After breakfast, seated at the little table between the kitchenette and living room amidst the trailer’s 1970s era decor, Caleb asked Miranda what she wanted to do with their day together.

“If it’s all the same to you,” she said, “I’d just as soon stay home.”

“Fine by me,” Caleb replied.

One of the many things Caleb acquired during his travels with the Army was a portable solar charger, weighing less than two pounds, which could be rolled up for easy storage. It didn’t generate a tremendous amount of electricity—12 volts was its max—but it was enough to charge the batteries on small devices, laptops, and tablets.

Things like iPads and smartphones, once more or less considered minor luxury items, were now one of the cheapest things a person could buy. During the Outbreak, after the grid went down, most people left their electronic devices behind. Consequently, a quick search of any abandoned home or residential neighborhood yielded a plentitude of the once-treasured items. Caleb had a sizable collection in his storage unit on the other side of town.

After he and Miranda finished eating and all the dishes were cleaned and put away, they sat together on the couch, perched an iPad on the coffee table, and watched a few episodes of
The Sopranos
. Caleb had never cared much for television, but found he didn’t mind it with the warmth of Miranda next to him.

Four episodes in, Caleb declared he was hungry and went outside to start a cookfire. Miranda connected the iPad to the charger and followed him to the backyard where there was a small patio table situated beneath the shade of several tall trees. Miranda sat in a chair next to the table, feet outstretched, watching Caleb as he mixed flour with water, eggs, and dried meat while heating a non-stick skillet over a small fire.

“Be nice when Jutaro finishes repairing the grid on this side of town,” Miranda said. “I’d dearly love to cook indoors again.”

“It’s not so bad, cooking outside,” Caleb said. “Least not when the weather’s nice.”

They spoke no more until Caleb brought a stack of soft flatbread and beans to the table. Miranda made small talk about a few goings on around town, but Caleb only half listened. He found his thoughts wandering as he ate, long-repressed memories scuttling across his mind on needle-sharp legs. It wasn’t until he finished eating that he realized Miranda had stopped talking and had been watching him thoughtfully the last few minutes.

“Sorry,” Caleb said.

Miranda’s mouth turned up at one corner. “Where you been, soldier?”

“Outbreak. Stayed away a long time, but it looks like I’m back for a visit.”

Soft fingers settled over his knuckles. “Tell me.”

“You don’t mind? I mean, it’s a nice day and all, and I’m leaving tomorrow.”

“Caleb, there’s nowhere else I would rather be, and no one else I would rather be with. Now come on, out with it.” 

A single nod. “All right, then.”

*****

Canyon Lake, Texas

The plan had been to begin searching right away, but after walking outside and seeing the opposite side of the lake, we all stopped and stared in mute shock. Being the first one to recover, I offered to grab the big eyes from one of the Humvees and survey the area before we headed out. Dad nodded absently and waved a hand toward the vehicles, his eyes never leaving the smoke in the distance.

Canyon Lake was, at one time, a popular destination for people from San Antonio, Austin, Houston, and just about every town in between. It had everything you could want: resorts, boating, fishing, watersports, swimming, sandy beaches, golf, small family amusement parks, even helicopter tours. Any other summer, the place would have been crawling with tourists. The roadways would have been clogged with vehicles, parking on the lakefront would have been a nightmare, and boats and jet-skis would have crisscrossed the water in teeming, booze-fueled multitudes.

But by the next morning, Canyon Lake was abandoned.

The massive fires that chased us all the way from Houston reached the eastern side of the lake and spared almost nothing. The Texas hill country for thousands of acres in every direction had become a blasted hellscape. Where once had grown lush, verdant greenery, trees now stood naked and blackened over scorched sand and incinerated brush. The once-blue lake was now a sullen, metallic gray from the tons of ash fallen into it. Thousands of fish of too weak a constitution to survive the water’s increased acidity floated belly up, staining the air with the pungent odor of rot. The cabin cruiser Dad and the others had anchored out last night had gone from white to the color of a cloudy winter sky.

Standing on the roof of Dale’s cabin and scanning the shore with a pair of sixty-power binoculars, I saw only a dozen or so structures still standing to the east. The long rows of buildings past the shoreline—houses, condominiums, vacation rentals, resorts, country clubs, mini-golf, parks, all of it—had been reduced to piles of smoldering ash. The entire peninsula of Canyon Park was a burned-out ruin, only a few soot-covered brick and cinder-block walls remaining as mute testimony to the lake’s former prosperity. The scene reminded me of old videos of Hiroshima after the bomb.

The north side of the lake didn’t fare much better; the fire leapt the Guadalupe River and kept right on trucking. Somehow, though, it missed the tips of a few peninsulas on the northwestern side of the lake. I studied them, but saw no signs of life.

The western shore was mostly gone except for a thin strip of shoreline north of us just below Comal Park Road. Only two houses had cars in their driveways, less than a quarter-mile apart.

I shifted focus westward, trying to find Canyon Lake Golf Club and Biscuit Hill Bed and Breakfast, both places I had visited before with my father. The golf club and accompanying fairways may as well have never existed, and the bed and breakfast was nowhere to be found. As near as I could tell, the fire had crept as close as Bridget Drive on the southern part of the peninsula, but then, by some miracle, stalled out. The fact the fire had gotten so close and we had all slept right through it gave me a case of the shivers.

On the peninsula immediately south of us, it appeared the same thing had happened to the lower half of Village View Drive. Although a good number of houses remained, I saw no more activity there than I had seen to the north. Other than those few untouched areas, not much of anything was still standing for as far as I could see.

I climbed down and gave the others my report. Dad nodded gravely and gestured back and forth between himself and Blake. “We’ll check the peninsula to the north, see if there are any survivors. Tyrel, you and Caleb search this neighborhood, then head south and see what you can find.”

Tyrel gave a thumbs-up. “Roger that.”

“No matter what,” Dad said, “we meet back here before sundown. Agreed?”

He got a round of acknowledgments. We dispersed to our vehicles.

Later that day, Dad and Blake told us how they made contact with three people in the section they searched, two of them an elderly couple in their eighties: Bob and Maureen Kennedy. According to Blake, they were happy to see friendly faces, but didn’t seem terribly bothered by what was going on.

“It’s a shame about those fires,” Bob said. “Last week or so, damn near everyone lives around here took off like scalded dogs. Even the tourists lit out. Can’t say as I blame ‘em, though. Maureen and I were up all night watchin’ the fires, hopin’ they’d miss us. Was a little while there I thought we’s gonna have to go out on the boat. But we got through it all right, thank the good Lord.”

“Are you two going to be okay out here?” Blake asked. “Do you have enough food, water?”

“Well, as far as food goes, we both love to fish,” the old man said, “and I don’t mind saying we’re pretty damn good at it. What you see floatin’ out there ain’t the tip of the iceberg. This lake’s got more fish than a beach got sand. Not to mention we got a vegetable garden here in the backyard and plenty o’ mason jars for cannin’. As for drinkin’ water, we can always filter and boil what we need from the lake. The folks at the dam fixed it so the river can flow just fine before they left. We ought to be all right until the government can get things settled down.”

Dad and Blake exchanged a glance at that, but didn’t argue with the old man. Instead, they gave the couple a flare and told them to send up a signal if they needed help. Bob accepted it with a smile and said they would be sure to do that.

The man living down the street from them was a different sort entirely. Blake caught sight of him through a window moving around in his house, but he refused to answer his door. Dad used the loudspeaker connected to the CB radio in his truck to announce who he and Blake were, and that while they meant the man no harm, they intended to search the surrounding houses for supplies. At that point, an upstairs window opened and the man shouted down to them.

“What gives you the right to do that?”

Dad said, “You see any cops around here, fella?”

The man came closer to the window. He was in his late forties, bald, shaved head, several days’ growth of beard on his face, pale and haggard, fleshy cheeks shot through with veins under sunken eyes. “That don’t make it right.”

“You’re welcome to come with us,” Dad said. “Load as much as you can carry and bring it back with you.”

The man thought about it for a few seconds, then said, “How about you just leave the houses on this block alone? There’s plenty of others to root through, and a housing development not three miles from here. If it ain’t burned down, it’s probably just as empty as this place.”

Dad looked at Blake, who shrugged. “Don’t see why not.”

“Okay,” Dad said. “You got a deal. I’m going to leave a flare on your porch. You run into trouble, pop it. One of us will see you, and we’ll help if we can.”

The man nodded. “Fair enough.”

He was about to shut the window when Dad spoke up again. “Hey, you got a name?”

“Phil Cary. Nice to meet you.” With that, he shut the window. Dad and Blake took it as their cue to leave.

Tyrel and I located two other holdouts, the first one only six houses down from us. He must have seen us pass by the night before because he was standing in his yard with a civilian model M-4 slung around his neck as if to make a statement. He kept his weapon low as the two of us rolled closer, but Tyrel wasn’t taking any chances. He drew his pistol and held it across his lap, out of sight, barrel pointed so he could shoot the man through the door if need be.

“Morning,” Tyrel greeted him.

The man inclined his head. He was tall, maybe six foot four, lean, strongly put together, graying brown hair in a tight crew cut, clean-shaven, dressed in a simple t-shirt, jeans, and sensible work boots. His alert gaze and erect posture said either ex-military or law enforcement.

“Good morning,” the man replied. He took in Tyrel’s dark beard and longish hair tied back under a headscarf, expression saying
not impressed
.

“Tyrel Jennings. This here’s Caleb Hicks.”

I leaned forward so the man could see me better and waved. He nodded to me, then shifted his attention back to Tyrel. “Name’s Lance Morton. Saw you folks come in last night. Some trucks, a jeep, couple of Humvees.”