Tipping Point (35 page)

Mac got down to the business of cleaning up around the place a little bit. She had a bunch of laundry to do by this point, and when she was done Cameron started dumping her own clothes into the washer. Neil and Billy were back by then and finishing up the ferret run.

Kelly and Annette dealt with the ferrets from the shelter. Twelve ferrets created a lot of waste in one day, and the upkeep was pretty much constant. Annette began reading some of the goat and chicken anatomy textbooks that Mac had purchased, and Kelly got started on lunch.

Mac called Ian to let him know the latest news, and found out that the outages in Cleveland were getting worse. They were interconnected with Toronto, so she’d been expecting it. All the major cities were a backup for everyone else. And when one went the rest of them had a heavier load with less support. New York City was already down.

Ian had taken her advice on the insulin, as well as the most important items on the list she’d sent him, but he was still working to get the remainder. Lines in stores were long, power outages caused payment processing delays, and people were a hairsbreadth from panic. She hung up thinking it was time for a final run on fuel.

Everyone had lunch, and Mac told them the details of her conversation with Ian.

“Once we’re finished eating, I’ll set everyone up for access to the gate and doors. Billy and Neil should probably do the fuel run, and we can start battening down the hatches after that. Kelly and Annette, you should follow them and pull your money out of the bank, including anything you can borrow on your credit cards, if it’s still possible. Buy lots of underwear, sturdy shoes, and clothes.” She gave them the same advice she’d given Leigh and Kirk the day before, only adding deodorant and other personal hygiene supplies.

“This is about to blow up, I’m afraid, so we have very little time. I’m going to take a nap soon, so that I can go out after the sun is down and get some work done. We should pour a concrete pad and put a shed on it to use as a vet care building. I’ll start on an exam table once I get Annette’s input for it.

“Tomorrow I think we need to go get those other ferrets. I don’t want to wait any longer than that. Can you call them and pave the way, Kelly?”

“No problem. God, this is really happening, isn’t it?”

Mac nodded, plotting things out in her head. Neil spoke up to give his opinion.

“We should probably hit Ottawa first. The more urban the city, the faster people are going to run out of things and panic. Sault is a little more geared toward rural, whereas the capital city is necessarily more modern.” Mackenzie nodded.

“You’re right. We’ll have to make two trips, though. We can’t have ferrets confined all the way from Ottawa to Sault Ste. Marie, and then from the Sault home. We’re talking fourteen or fifteen hours. The stress would be terrible for the ferrets.” Kelly nodded her agreement.

“They can’t be sedated for that long, for one thing. If they don’t eat and drink four to six times a day, they get really sick, really fast.”

“If there are dozens of them, we’ll need to convert the truck bed or something, or make multiple trips. And that’s something I don’t want to do. When you call them, Kelly, can you find out how many there are so I know what to plan for?”

“Will do.”

Neil waited for everyone to disperse before talking to Mackenzie in more detail about her plans.

“You don’t have to take everything on all at once. We’ll have plenty of time when we get back to build exam tables and a personal animal hospital.”

“I need to feel productive, Neil. Sitting around and doing nothing while other people work is just not comfortable for me. You worked all day. I’ll get some rest now, and you can sleep through the night. This damn sun stroke, or whatever it is, is making me really tired anyway. Either that or the fact that you kept me up so much of last night and we woke up at dawn.” Neil stroked her hair and kissed her softly.

“Get some rest honey. I’ll make sure everything is taken care of.” Knowing that he would was the only thing that kept her from panicking at this point. She’d refused to let anyone else see it, but she’d been badly shaken by Ian’s news. It didn’t matter that it was what she’d been expecting. Now it was happening, and time was growing very, very short.

Neil wasn’t fooled by it, she was sure, but he didn’t say anything. Not everything needed to, or even should, be talked about. Reinforcing panic was never a good thing, and he did his best to soothe her fears without all the discussion.

When Mac finally fell asleep, her dreams were not pleasant ones. When she woke up things were even worse.

Sweat covered her body still when she left the bedroom to find Kelly sobbing and fear in everyone else’s eyes. They were all seated around the table.

“What happened?” Her own panic skyrocketed, and she had to struggle to control her emotions.

“Ottawa is dark,” Neil said softly, and pulled her into his lap to hold her.

“Obviously there’s more to the story. What is it?”

“Civilians in Ottawa overtook parliament. They were in session to discuss the power situation in southern Ontario. A few members of parliament were killed, along with our prime minister. The military police couldn’t stop the mass of people.

“We don’t know all the details. Just what Kelly got from Lianne at the shelter there. Some is rumour, of course, since everything went dark there shortly after it happened, but Trudeau was definitely killed.”

“Jesus. We need to get them out of there right now then. Can they get out of the city with the ferrets on their own? That’d be a better solution. The sooner they get outside the city, the better, and it would mean we wouldn’t have to go into the city at all. We can meet them with fuel if they don’t have enough.” Kelly nodded and wiped at her eyes and nose.

“They were already planning to go, so I told them to leave and head this way with the ferrets. They have a van, though with all the ferrets it’ll be pretty cramped. They
might
actually be able to get here on a single tank, so you may not have to head toward Ottawa at all.

“Sault Ste. Marie is a different story. It’s barely even a shelter, so she doesn’t have a van to transport a whole bunch of ferrets. Elizabeth said she was wondering if she was going to have to put them to sleep. She knows she can’t stay in the city, and she has no way to move them. There are ten ferrets there, so it’s not a lot, but she wasn’t able to find fuel. She apparently ended up running out while she was looking for more, and had to abandon the car and walk home.”

“We need a different game plan then. Looks like Lianne’s bunch is on alert status, rather than an emergency one, whereas Elizabeth’s are our highest priority now,” Neil said.

“Would Billy know how to get to highway 60?” Neil thought about it.

“He’s been out that way any number of times, though I hate the thought of sending him out on a rescue mission. It’s more the parent in me than anything else. I know he’d be fine, logically. I’d just rather keep him in a safe place.”

“Tell me about it. I’m the same with Cameron. I’d say it’s pretty low-risk, though. It’s more that she doesn’t know the area. Barely remembers living here when she was a kid. She does know how to handle a weapon, however.”

“Billy, too. We don’t have handguns, except for the SIG. Just long-guns. Should probably send them out with both a rifle and a shotgun, just to ease our parental misgivings. Of course, that’s assuming there’s a need for them to find the van in the first place. We’ll send Lianne exact directions to this place, and tell her not to deviate from their route in any way, so if Billy and Cam do have to go looking they won’t miss one another on the road. Hopefully they don’t get lost.

“The real issue will be communicating with them. I doubt very much they have a satellite phone, and I would bet the cell towers will start going dark soon. If they can’t call to let us know there’s a problem, we’ll have to set up a deadline for them to get here. If they don’t make it by then, then the kids will have to go.”

“You
could
stay here while I go to Sault Ste. Marie, but we both know that’s not going to happen. It’s far more likely we’ll have a major problem on that trip, than there would be going a short distance to find the van from Ottawa.”

“I’m glad you didn’t put that suggestion forward seriously, or I would have to kick your ass. When we send them the detailed directions, we’ll give them the timeline for when to expect a rescue. We’ll leave one satellite phone with Billy and have the other one with us, just in case, though I’m not sure how much help we can be from that distance. We might be able to talk them through a situation, but that’s about it.

“All the fuel containers are full, which is a damn good thing. Your timing was dead-on there, honey. I doubt we’ll be able to refill them again even as late as tomorrow. Your car might be able to make the trip to Sault, one way, but it definitely won’t make it back again.

“We’ll have to strap every fuel container we can to the car, so we can completely refill the tank at least once, and then have fuel in reserve in case my calculations are off. The trip there takes just over five hours, plus any driving we have to do to find the shelter. How many people are we talking there, Kelly?”

“She’s by herself. Lianne’s got her husband, but they’re in the van together. No kids other than the furry kind.”

“How many ferrets does she have?” Mac was wondering if the run was going to be big enough. They already had a tally of twenty-two shelter ferrets. She wasn’t counting Pickle and Squeaker, since they weren’t going to be a part of the group.

“Twenty-eight.” Mac whistled.

“This should be fun. Fifty rescue ferrets. We’ll have to make some adjustments, because even with the run at the back we’re going to start taking on the conditions of a back-yard breeder if we’re not careful. And we’re going to need more food for them. I bought a lot of kibble, but that won’t last as long now. We’ll have to start breeding chickens like crazy, I think.” She looked at Neil.

“And here I thought we were going to have too many eggs.” He smiled back at her.

“We’ll have to start getting them used to eating eggs then,” Kelly said worriedly.

“It can be done. Takes some patience, as you know, but a lot of times seeing another ferret eating something will get them curious. Both of mine love them as a treat, so we can start supplementing the kibble as much as possible. That’s a problem for another day, though. We’ve got three more people on their way, which also means the big building is a major priority.”

“We can get Billy and Cameron started on that while we’re gone, assuming Cameron can tell Billy what to do.” Mackenzie agreed, and set about creating a detailed list of instructions for them. Kelly and Annette volunteered to help with that, since their only jobs so far had been to look after the ferrets from Kelly’s shelter.

Mackenzie wanted to close her eyes and hang her head in submission, but there was just too much to be done. She hated being unprepared like this. She’d spent so many years being anal about preparedness, with all her lists and sub-lists. It hadn’t been a waste, but it still hadn’t prepared them for the real crisis. If it had just been her and Cameron, things would have been perfectly fine, but that’s not how it had worked out.

Now things had taken a horrifying turn. One she hadn’t been expecting at all. At least not yet. Violence had erupted in the nation’s capital, killing the person people would automatically be looking to for answers. They were abruptly without their most visible leadership, which meant the country could go into an immediate free-for-all. She found herself unexpectedly sad about Trudeau. He’d done a good job with the mess he’d inherited.

They strapped full fuel containers to the top of the trunk lid, and on the back of it, above the bumper. Having containers strapped to the roof would kill their aerodynamics, and they couldn’t afford to do that now. They would also be limiting the number of ferret carriers to two, with five ferrets in each, so there would be room for Elizabeth to sit in the back seat.

This was not going to be a happy journey, even if it all went smoothly, what with Mac worrying the whole way there and back. Having Neil with her was really the only thing that would keep her from freaking out now. Impulsively she grabbed his hand as she walked by him during her final trip back to the house. He stopped and looked at her.

“It’ll be okay honey. We’ll make sure we get home to our kids safe and sound. We can take shifts driving. I’m not quite ready to sleep yet, but I will be soon. I can drive until we get past North Bay and then you can take over. One person could do it in a day of driving, but we’re already tired and stressed.” Mac looked him in the eye then.

“Are you holding up okay? You’ve been looking out for me, but we’ve done a lot together the last few days where you’ve been drawing the short straw. You must be wiped.” He smiled.

“I’m fine, really. Just starting to get a bit tired. It’s your fault, though not for the reasons you just stated.” Mac already knew where he was going with that, so she cut him off.

“Oh, no you don’t. You’re not going to blame me because a good wind gets you horny.”

“While the wind is a pretty sexy thing, I really don’t think that’s what’s been doing it for me lately.”

“Probably the goats, then.” She smacked his ass and moved on to the house, hearing his laughter trail behind him as he headed back to the car with the fuel can he’d been carrying when she’d stopped him.

Mac paused and looked at her truck then. It was parked in a different spot, and then it occurred to her that she didn’t remember seeing it when she got back the day before. She’d been a bit distracted, what with getting married and all. It took her a minute to notice what was off about it. When Neil went to walk past her, she stopped him once again.

“How the hell did my truck get fixed?” Neil grinned at her.

“‘Bout time you noticed it. I took it over to a friend’s while you were gone yesterday and picked it up today. He’s got a small body shop with a paint booth. Gave him a bonus to get it done right away. What do you think?”