“What?”
Hayden covered a small blanket over Nicholas’s sleeping form. “I tried talking her out of it... told her there wasn’t time. She went anyway.”
Jake tried to picture how Mandy’s last minutes had been; speeding down twelve miles of back roads trying to find him—trying to save him. She had been cheating on him with another man, but in the final moments of her life, Mandy had come looking for him. Jake wept into the damp cloth, his tears mixing with the blood and horse’s trough water.
Chapter 10
Hayden pushed one of the shelter doors open a crack. The sky was heavy with clouds. They were swirling about like massive whirlpools in an ocean of radioactive grey and green. Clouds like that brought frightening storms with them, the kind that spawned twisters. The weather patterns were all fucked up, adjusting to the garbage in the atmosphere, and extremely unpredictable. He’d only left the shelter twice, once to chase after Mandy, the other after her son. Both times Hayden had encountered strange weather; hot winds and cold winds, dust devils the color orange, and a spatter of rain that smelled chemical. The old earth didn’t know what to make of the change, so she tried to adjust the best she could.
How long would it be before they could set out? How far would they have to travel to even find another survivor? Hayden pulled the door shut. Judging from the color of the sky, they’d be waiting a long time.
The lanterns had been snuffed out. It was pitch black inside, like a cave deep inside the biggest of mountains, stifling and claustrophobic. He could hear Trixie clomping her hooves restlessly in the straw. She needed to get out worse than the rest of them. She needed room to move, and pastures to run through. Somewhere near his horse, Jake was sleeping next to Nicholas. Jake’s dying. As horrible as it sounds, I hope it happens soon. The boy will be devastated, but the man has suffered enough already.
Hayden crawled to the nearest corner and found the blanket he’d yanked from his bed a few days before. He lay on his side in the dry dirt and pulled the comforter up over his shoulder. He rested his head against a balled up sack that once held oats. Mandy and Nicholas had been with him when he ran throughout his home gathering supplies. It had been her idea to bring the sheets and blankets. Hayden wished she’d thought of grabbing some pillows as well. It would’ve been softer than an empty feed sack.
The doors started to rattle. The wind had picked up. Batten down the hatches, a storm’s blowing in.
It picked up, and the doors shook continuously for the next half hour. Hayden kept one eye trained on the strip of grey light. It had grown darker outside, and nightfall—such as it was since the dust had started to settle—was still hours away. There was nothing Hayden could do about it. They were in the safest place left known to him. He closed his eyes and prayed the noise wouldn’t waken Nicholas. He prayed that Jake was already dead.
Hayden thought more about the pillow that had burned up in his house. If he had it with him now, he could crawl over and smother the last bit of life away from Jake. It would be a mercy. End his misery... end Nicholas’s fear and confusion. Hayden winced in the dark. Mandy had sacrificed her life in a hopeless attempt to save her husband, and here Hayden was now, planning to kill him anyway. What would she think of that? What kind of monster was he?
He listened as the wind roared down the hill and pulled at the doors.
***
Hayden could hear something hissing. He opened his eyes to a bright yellow light and shielded them with the back of his hand. The gas lantern... it was off when I went to sleep, I’m sure of it. Something cold and hard jammed up under his chin. Hayden pulled his hand away and saw the barrel end of his hunting rifle. Jake was on his knees, holding the gun in both hands. Hayden tried to speak, and Jake pushed harder.
“Doesn’t feel that nice, hey—having a fucking gun stuck into your head?” Jake was whispering, still mindful not to wake the boy sleeping less than twenty feet away. It was a dry, painful sounding rasp. “What did you think, Hayden? How’d you think I would act once I found out you’d been banging my wife? But it didn’t end there, did it? The two of you made it worse... dragged Nicholas into it.”
“It wasn’t like that.” Hayden gasped, and tried swallowing against the pressure on his Adam’s apple. Jake pulled the gun back a half inch. “We weren’t... we weren’t messing around the morning it happened. We never did anything like that when Nicholas was around.”
“So what was it then? Why the hell was Mandy with you, and why did she bring my son to your fucking farm?”
“Goddamn it, Jake. It wasn’t just sex. We were friends... she came over for coffee, that was all. She came over a lot to visit. Your wife was lonely... I was lonely. Nicholas was always welcome. I love that kid.” Hayden saw something in his glistening, sick eyes—a twinkle of pure hatred. He had said the wrong words. Screwing a man’s wife wasn’t a good thing to do; being her friend and loving his son was unforgivable.
Jake rammed the gun forward again, hard enough for Hayden to feel it pushing up against the underside of his mouth. “Don’t say another word about him, not another fucking word.” He leaned in close
