hugged Chelle into her stomach, then she bent over her to take the guy’s punches in her back so Chelle was protected.”
I looked at Michaela. She gazed at me steadily. She must have heard this kind of story dozens of times before from survivors. But she listened with a serious expression. I even felt she was encouraging me to get it off my chest.
“Well, I launched myself at the guy who was trying to kill my mom.
…” My voice died away.
“And?” she prompted gently.
“And I lost my mind… at least for a while. When I came to I was lying in this mass of broken pottery. I thought the guy had knocked me unconscious, but it turned out I’d had some kind of blackout. But I had fought the guy. He’d opened a gash on my forehead and bloodied my nose. I don’t remember anything about it, but my mother told me I’d struggled with the guy, then grabbed him by the throat and smashed his head against the kitchen wall so hard it had cracked all the wall tiles…” I shook my head. “My mother called those tiles her swanky tiles. She loved them.”
“You saved their lives.”
“Yeah, for what good it did.”
“What then?”
“The guy was out cold or dead, I don’t know. We picked up what groceries we could carry, then drove away. It was just luck, I suppose, but we found a house way up on a hillside, like it had been dug into a hole there. And that’s where we sat it out for month after month.”
“The hornets didn’t find you?”
“No. Not that I remember much about it. I’d drunk water from a stream that must have been contaminated by a dead animal or something. I was sick for weeks. Most of the time I was in such a high fever and delirious, I didn’t know day from night. I was out of it. I can’t remember a thing.”
“Your mother and sister were able to care for you alone?”
“Somehow they scavenged food from abandoned houses and stores. But like I said I didn’t know anything about it.”
We reached the steps that lead to the boat. “Then for some reason we hit the road again,” I told her. “I don’t remember much. We wound up in a little town in the hills… or the remains of one. I still couldn’t eat and was still pretty much out of it. I don’t even know properly how it happened, but my sister and mother became sick. I was looking for help when a hunting party from Sullivan found me-Sullivan’s the place across the lake, there. They got us to a doctor, but my mother and Chelle died within hours of each other. The doctor said it was some kind of blood poisoning. But I’m not sure if he really knew what it was. What are you doing?”
“Getting into the boat.”
“No, you have to wait here. I’ll bring the food back across to you.”
“How do I know that? You might change your mind and stay across there on paradise island and forget all about us.”
“I’ll bring food,” I told her as she slipped the shotgun off her shoulder. “Or are you going to blow a hole in me if I don’t do what you tell me?”
“And where’d that get me? You being dead won’t bring us the food.” She lay the gun on one of the bench seats.
“Look, Michaela, I’m not allowed to bring strangers onto the island. Hell, I’m not even supposed to leave the island myself.”
“I’m coming with you.”
“No. If I’m found with you, they’ll kill us both. Believe me.”
Her voice stayed firm. “Greg, I’m coming.”
Seventeen
Short of punching her unconscious and dumping her back on the harbor wall, what could I do? As I tied the boat to the jetty nearest my cabin, I whispered to her, “People tend not to wander down here in the early hours, so we shouldn’t meet anyone, but keep as quiet as you can. OK?”
Shouldering the gun, she nodded. There was more than enough light to reveal us to anyone who happened to be taking a dawn stroll, so instead of using the track for the three-minute walk to my place I took a slightly longer route through the woods, where we’d be concealed by trees. I just thanked my lucky stars there’d been enough mist on the lake to conceal our crossing from Lewis to Sullivan.
This was no ideal situation for sure, but I remember Michaela’s hungry friends. They deserved a chance, too. Besides, those nice, smiling bastards of Sullivan could spare some food. With luck I could run the supplies across to Lewis in the battery-powered launch and still be back before the dawn mist melted away.
When we reached the cabin Michaela was amazed. In awe, she stared at the cans and jars I’d dumped on the table and worktops and never gotten ’round to putting into the cupboards.
I’d already pulled the blinds down so I said, “You can relax now.”
Still overawed, she just nodded. She didn’t look any more relaxed.
“Michaela, you can talk normally as well. We’re a quarter of a mile from the nearest house.”
“OK,” she said in a tiny whisper.
“Sit down. I’ll fix you something to eat.”
“I’m all right. Let’s get the food to the boat.”
“You don’t look all right.” Maybe it was the sight of all that food after living on raw potatoes for a couple of days that did it, but she’d started to sway; her dark eyes suddenly unfocused.
“It’ll take me a few minutes to get the stuff together. Sit down at the table. Here.” I put bowls in front of her. There were tomatoes, grown locally in greenhouses. Heaped in a basket were plums and mushrooms. A real dog’s dinner of a mixture, but she began to eat. I’d still got a good-sized chunk of bread that wasn’t overly dry and a can of corned beef. She watched me open that like I was producing diamonds from the can, not a block of boiled beef that was close to its “best by” date. Even though she must have been hungry as hell she didn’t eat like a hog. She sliced the corned beef with a knife, then slipped it between her lips. Then it hit me that I hadn’t eaten for more than twenty-four hours either. I filled a jug from the faucet and grabbed a couple of glasses.
“You’ve water mains, too?” She sipped it like fine wine. “I wasn’t wrong: This is paradise.”
“Water’s pumped from a well nearby. More?”
“Please.”
I refilled her glass, then ate, too.
“I can’t believe you’ve got all this food. Haven’t hornets hassled you at all?”
“No. Well… there’ve been a few, but they came in just ones or twos. They didn’t even attack. They just turned up asking for food and shelter.”
“They were still in the early stages of it, then. What happened to them?”
“I killed them.” I spoke matter-of-factly, but she shot me a startled look.
“You killed them before they went full-blown and started attacking people?”
“Yes… Try these pickles. They’re good.” I aimed to change the line of talk, but she was having none of it.
“You mean you kill every stranger that walks into this town?”
“No. I think I’ve got some cheese somewhere if you want to try-”
“Greg, I don’t understand. You mean to say you’ve got some way of running medical screening? That you can tell if people are infected with Jumpy?”
“No… nothing like that.”
“What then?”
“You tell me about these hives, then. That thing I found in the apartment was weird, you know?”
“They are weird as hell, Greg. But I’m not saying anything about the hive until my people get the food you promised them.”
